Democrats appear to have completely abandoned all pretense of getting “dark money” out of politics, and now are embracing it fully and leveraging its power in an attempt to clamp down on investigations into government corruption.
The Congressional Integrity Project is the name given to a dark money group that is using funds to dig up dirt on Republicans involved in the probe into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
As the Washington Free Beacon reports, the Congressional Integrity Project is giving the White House and Democrats on Capitol Hill opposition research on the Republicans spearheading the investigation into the Biden family — along with polling data and ads to use against these Republicans.
This comes as the GOP, newly in control of the House of Representatives, has made it a priority to get to the bottom of Biden’s business dealings, as well as the border crisis, Biden’s handling of classified documents, and other scandals.
Democrats’ intimate partnership with the Congressional Integrity Project comes even as the party’s top members claim to want to curb the influence of dark money in American politics.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), for example, brooded in 2018 that “a flood of dark money is poisoning our democracy, letting deep-pocketed special interests prevent Congress from acting even on issues upon which we agree.” And Biden himself has declared that “dark money erodes public trust.”
Yet Swalwell participated in a Congressional Integrity Project conference call just this week. And Biden has been one of the group’s biggest beneficiaries, as it is investing significant sums of cash to attack Republicans who dare look too closely into Biden’s dirty laundry.
And on this front, the Congressional Integrity Project has been very transparent about what it’s doing and what it hopes to achieve. Brad Woodhouse, a longtime Democratic strategist who works as a senior advisor for the organization, previously said they “will exploit every tactic available.”
“It’s not enough to wait and see what they’re going to do and how far they’re going to go,” Woodhouse stated. He even told CNN that the Congressional Integrity Project will “go on offense” against Republicans.
It should be noted that Woodhouse was present at a September meeting of Democratic operatives held at the White House — demonstrating the close ties between the Congressional Integrity Project and the Biden administration.
In recent weeks, the group has set its sights on Reps. James Comer (R-Ky.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), publishing press releases and research reports in which the group attempts to frame the two Republicans as hypocrites for their roles in investigating Biden.
As the Free Beacon notes:
Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is investigating Biden’s family business dealings, with a focus on Hunter Biden’s activities in China. He is also investigating the federal government’s coronavirus relief program, which reportedly disbursed billions of dollars in fraudulent federal loans. Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, is turning his attention to the Biden administration’s handling of the border crisis. He has also sought records from the Justice Department on Biden’s handling of classified documents.
An example of the Congressional Integrity Project’s opposition research came this week in a hit piece on Comer. The group accused Comer of hypocrisy in his investigation of billions of dollars in fraudulent coronavirus relief payments, because the congressman’s brother received a $12,000 loan under the pandemic-era Paycheck Protection Program. While Comer’s brother is not accused of misusing the loan, the Congressional Integrity Project claimed without evidence that Comer had “padded his brother’s pockets.”
Because the Congressional Integrity Project, like other dark money groups, is legally classified as a nonprofit, it is not required to reveal the names of its donors. However, a look at its tax filings does reveal that the vast majority of its money comes from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which has earned a reputation as the “indisputable heavyweight of Democratic dark money.”
The Sixteen Thirty Fund notably spent millions trying to stop Brett Kavanaugh from being appointed to the Supreme Court. It operates under dozens of different trade names, such as Arizonans United for Health Care, Floridians for a Fair Shake, Michigan Families for Economic Prosperity, and North Carolinians for a Fair Economy.
According to the Washington Examiner, the Sixteen Thirty Fund has given $1.5 million to the Congressional Integrity Project since 2020.
And while the Sixteen Thirty Fund is also not required to disclose its donors, some of them have willingly chosen to reveal themselves. Among them is George Soros, who disclosed contributions of $24,930,000 to the Sixteen Thirty Fund in 2021 alone, per the grants database of his Open Society Foundations.
The New American has previously reported on another Soros-aligned dark money hub, the New Venture Fund, which has collaborated with the Sixteen Thirty Fund.
Through one New Venture Fund project, the Community Resource Hub for Safety and Accountability (CRH), Soros has funded activism aimed at dismantling the police.
CRH describes itself “as a resource for local advocates and organizers working to address the harms of policing in the U.S.” It notoriously produced a memo that “reviews alternatives to policing in the context of police abolitionist frameworks, offering insights and sharing successful strategies for advocates in the field.”
And Soros’ support of CRH is just one of many ways the Hungarian-born investor has used his money to reshape local policing. For years, Soros has put money into district attorney races, typically supporting the most left-wing candidates. Moreover, his wide network of nonprofits has put hundreds of millions of dollars toward causes such as “racial equality” and “criminal justice reform.”
